(06-07-2016 06:31 AM)Chas Wrote: That is a garbled and meaningless statement. Entropy can be lowered locally - it happens all the time.

Yes a reaction will occur to lower entropy if it also lowers energy. That is a how a crystal forms. It won't occur spontaneously if it increases energy and lowers entropy. Imagine a bomb working in reverse.

What do you mean by 'spontaneously'?. In an isolated system that is essentially true, but we are not dealing with closed systems.
Energy added to the system can increase the order and energy of the system.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

(06-07-2016 07:46 AM)u196533 Wrote: At some point in the history of life on earth, a self-ordering, autocatalytic chemical system had to develop characteristics to which selfishness could be attributed.

Just stop. You are embarrassingly misguided.

That last statement is indicative of your utter misunderstanding of evolution.

(06-07-2016 07:46 AM)u196533 Wrote: While the will to live/self-preservation can be rationalized in a sentient being, it can’t be naturally explained in a simple organism or the replicator molecules. Dawkins describes a selfish, replicator molecule emerging. However, selfishness and replication are 2 independent attributes. He glosses over the selfish aspect and takes it for granted. (I am convinced he did so due to his a priori commitment to atheism.) The fact that Dawkins, a great story teller, did not even attempt to create a semi-plausible story to explain that speaks volumes.

I seriously doubt you have actually read The Selfish Gene.
In the event that I am wrong about that, you clearly did not understand what you read.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

(06-07-2016 07:46 AM)u196533 Wrote: I was not suggesting that abiogenesis started in a jar. I was pointing put that the atoms would be in a higher state of entropy and lower state of energy as constituent atoms.

At some point in the history of life on earth, a self-ordering, autocatalytic chemical system had to develop characteristics to which selfishness could be attributed. The story starts with a molecule that replicates and evolves into RNA/DNA. It miraculously obtains a method to metabolize food and somewhere along that path life begins.
The problem is that the driving energy and/or the chemicals needed for reaction would have had to exhaust themselves at some point in a process that took millions of years. I can imagine some goldilocks environment where all the necessary chemicals and energy were force fed for some period of time, but at some point the chemicals and energy would have been cut off. At that point those pre-biotic replicator molecules should have simply ceased to exist. Instead those autocatalytic chemicals must have had to manipulate the environment in order to extract energy in an act of self-preservation. Chemistry and thermodynamics dictate that a chemical system won’t spontaneously extract energy from the environment in order to lower it’s entropy.

While the will to live/self-preservation can be rationalized in a sentient being, it can’t be naturally explained in a simple organism or the replicator molecules. Dawkins describes a selfish, replicator molecule emerging. However, selfishness and replication are 2 independent attributes. He glosses over the selfish aspect and takes it for granted. (I am convinced he did so due to his a priori commitment to atheism.) The fact that Dawkins, a great story teller, did not even attempt to create a semi-plausible story to explain that speaks volumes.
Selfishness cannot simply be assumed. A chemical system developing the impetus not merely to replicate, but to persist against death cannot be explained. No other inorganic self-ordering, autocatalytic, structures does that. A candle flame, a hurricane, or a Bénard cell does not seek resources when the material conditions needed to continue run out; they cease.
Living things do so until all options are exhausted. Some of the simplest organisms engage in elaborate behaviors to forestall death.

"I was not suggesting that abiogenesis started in a jar."

No, you were suggesting something equally as stupid. You were suggesting that life requires supernature in order to begin because you fail to understand chemistry and biology.

"At some point in the history of life on earth, a self-ordering, autocatalytic chemical system had to develop characteristics to which selfishness could be attributed. "

Evolution. It's called "evolution." That's the theory we use to describe how life changes over time. Once the first living organism is on Earth, it evolves.

"The story starts with a molecule that replicates and evolves into RNA/DNA."

No, you're straw man starts with that.

Life starts with redox chemistry.

"It miraculously obtains a method to metabolize food and somewhere along that path life begins. "

Now your ignorance is showing. You do realize that not all living things generate energy the same way, right? Photoautotrophs and chemoautotrophs do just fine without needing to find and metabolize "food."

"The problem is that the driving energy and/or the chemicals needed for reaction would have had to exhaust themselves at some point in a process that took millions of years."

That isn't even close to being true. Do you know how large Earth is and how widely available the reactants necessary for redox reactions are? Your statement would mean that life can never survive on Earth for more than "millions of years" and yet evidence for life goes back almost 3 billion years.

"I can imagine some goldilocks environment where all the necessary chemicals and energy were force fed for some period of time, but at some point the chemicals and energy would have been cut off. "

Your imagination runs wild with presuppositionalist scenarios.

"At that point those pre-biotic replicator molecules should have simply ceased to exist. Instead those autocatalytic chemicals must have had to manipulate the environment in order to extract energy in an act of self-preservation. "

Simple organisms (like that of bacteria or a virus or whatever the first living thing was) don't "act" out of "self-preservation." You are assigning consciousness to living things that do not possess it.

But once again, EVOLUTION is the process by which living things change over time and adapt to their environment. YOU assert that evolution adapts the environment to the living organisms, which isn't what evolution does.

Living things do modify the environment in which they live, including food webs whereby organisms use one another to subsist and survive. But this is a byproduct of life, not a conscious effort on its part (very few organisms intentionally manipulate the environment in which they live).

Chemistry and thermodynamics dictate that a chemical system won’t spontaneously extract energy from the environment in order to lower it’s entropy."

Once again, the redox chemistry that formed the basis of life is no different than any other redox reaction. Are you now suggesting that chemists and biologists believe that redox reactions "spontaneously extract energy from the environment" in order to "lower entropy?"

Yet again, you arrogantly assert that chemists and biologists don't know basic redox chemistry, when the opposite is more obviously true.

"While the will to live/self-preservation can be rationalized in a sentient being, it can’t be naturally explained in a simple organism or the replicator molecules. Dawkins describes a selfish, replicator molecule emerging. However, selfishness and replication are 2 independent attributes. He glosses over the selfish aspect and takes it for granted. (I am convinced he did so due to his a priori commitment to atheism.) The fact that Dawkins, a great story teller, did not even attempt to create a semi-plausible story to explain that speaks volumes.
Selfishness cannot simply be assumed. A chemical system developing the impetus not merely to replicate, but to persist against death cannot be explained. No other inorganic self-ordering, autocatalytic, structures does that. A candle flame, a hurricane, or a Bénard cell does not seek resources when the material conditions needed to continue run out; they cease."

Now you are straw manning Dawkins. Hint: when Dawkins uses the word "selfish" he is being very specific about what he means and why.

"In describing genes as being "selfish", the author does not intend (as he states unequivocally) to imply that they are driven by any motives or will, but merely that their effects can be metaphorically and pedagogically described as if they were. The contention is that the genes that are passed on are the ones whose evolutionary consequences serve their own implicit interest (to continue the anthropomorphism) in being replicated, not necessarily those of the organism. In later work, Dawkins brings evolutionary "selfishness" down to creation of a widely proliferated extended phenotype.[8]" from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfis...h.22_genes

"Living things do so until all options are exhausted. Some of the simplest organisms engage in elaborate behaviors to forestall death."

You continue to assign conscious qualities to non-sentient living things.

Which scenario do you think more likely:
1) you understand and grasp the science of evolution and abiogenesis better than the scientists who study and research it (including the likes of Dawkins)
2) you think you understand it better but your frail grasp on it is based on only a very basic understanding of the science from which you extrapolate some sort of expertise.

You are picking at specific words and creating tangents or strawmen based on a single word. Replace the term selfishness with self-preservation and the words “manipulate the environment” with “extract energy from the environment”. The basic concept is that living things seek energy to lower entropy. This can be rationalized in a sentient being as self –preservation. (It is an emergent property so science/reductionism will never be able to explain self –preservation.) However, it cannot be explained in the simple chemical systems envisioned in the process of abiogenesis. When non-living things run out of energy/driing force, they cease and fall apart. Why did simple replicator molecules and other prebiotic chemical systems seek energy (food)? They should have just succumbed to chemistry and decomposed to lower their energy and increase their entropy.

The process of going from replicator molecule to some primitive life form prior to photosynthesis was an uphill battle against entropy. Sure some links in the chain may have been thermodynamically favorable. But overall these reactions would not have been favorable since the final endpoint is clearly in a lower state of entropy and a higher state of energy than a the starting point of a simple replicator molecule.
The process would have taken millions of years, and involved billions or trillions of reactions. I can imagine a Goldilocks environment for some period of time. Enough heat to facilitate the reactions, but not enough to destabilize the molecules, coupled with the perfect stew of chemicals to drive these reactions. (The perfect stew would need to change in concert as the molecules evolved. Also molecular evolution is not supported by the research data) However, Goldilocks could not have been maintained for millions of years. At some point, those chemicals would need to consistently seek energy in order to lower their energy as living things do.

Pointing to the sun (or hydrothermal vents) is naïve. Sure the heat would have been a necessary component without which endothermic reactions could not occur. However, the presence of energy/heat does not mean that they WILL occur. Actually if you spend a minute looking at the Gibbs Free energy equation you will realize that increasing the temp actually impedes a reaction in which the entropy is lowered. (E.g. Adding heat energy makes it harder to compress balloon.) When applied, the heat would have been an enabler, not a driving force.

The emergence of self-preservation clearly had to have occurred for abiogenesis to occur naturally. However, it is nowhere in the literature. It is completely ignored.

(06-07-2016 07:37 AM)u196533 Wrote: Yes a reaction will occur to lower entropy if it also lowers energy. That is a how a crystal forms. It won't occur spontaneously if it increases energy and lowers entropy. Imagine a bomb working in reverse.

What do you mean by 'spontaneously'?. In an isolated system that is essentially true, but we are not dealing with closed systems.
Energy added to the system can increase the order and energy of the system.

"Spontaneous" is a fundamental concept of chemistry. If you don't understand it, I don't have time to explain it.

(05-07-2016 09:33 PM)u196533 Wrote: You don't understand catalysts/enzymes. Imagine a match. The phosphorus, sulfur and potassium chlorate combine with oxygen and in the process heat/energy is released. It is a spontaneous reaction but does not occur until you strike the match. The act of striking it provides the activation energy to start the chemical reaction. An enzyme just lowers the activation energy to facilitate the reaction. However, if the chemicals would increase energy and lower entropy, the reaction will not occur spontaneously. An enzyme would not change that.

You can't refute my argument and clearly don't have a clue, so you resort to ad hominum attacks.

And you have no clue what ATP is, and the fact it RELEASES energy, (the amounts for which are listed on the prior page). You have no "argument". You simply don't know anything about Biochemistry.

Still waiting for your videos.
Still waiting for you to refute the chemistry of Szostack.
Still waiting to hear why it matters that DNA is unstable outside of cells.
Still waiting to hear why atoms in a jar being shaken, is a true anaology .... LMAO.

I won't bother with the videos or Szostack because it is irrelevant. He starts with RNA . He needs to start with simple chemistry to be relevant to our discussion. DNA/RNA being unstable outside of cells is relevant because the vast majority of abiogenesis tales envision some replicator molecule evolving to RNA or DNA.
I never said my jar though experiment was an analogy. I was trying to hammer home the fact that the atoms are in a lower state of energy and higher state of entropy as constituents versus ina an amoeba (or any living organism)

(06-07-2016 12:29 PM)u196533 Wrote: I won't bother with the videos or Szostack because it is irrelevant.

Of course you won't.
He doesn't "start with RNA".
The series describes a possible pathway to life.
You have no credible alternative, (other than one of the gods done did it).

You also are not a Nobel laureate, teaching for Harvard and working at Johns Hopkins. Of course you won't "bother" with him. You are incapable of doing so.

You still have not told us what the absolute boundary is, between life and non-life.
You told us you have better videos. Where are they ?

Quote:This can be rationalized in a sentient being as self –preservation. (It is an emergent property so science/reductionism will never be able to explain self –preservation.)

Complete bullshit. There are animals which will sacrifice themselves for their group, expending great energy, and never achieving lower entropy.
Self-preservation is an evolved property. There are many (non-sentient) organisms in which "reflexes" are observed to noxious stimuli, (fire, heat, cold, extreme pH etc etc).
So sorry.
Science HAS ALREADY explained "self preservation". You're and your idiot friends from Creation Ministries are just too dense to get it.http://www.joelvelasco.net/teaching/167w...%20dna.pdf

Insufferable know-it-all. God has a plan for us. Please stop screwing it up with your prayers.

(06-07-2016 12:29 PM)u196533 Wrote: I won't bother with the videos or Szostack because it is irrelevant.

Of course you won't.
He doesn't "start with RNA".
The series describes a possible pathway to life.
You have no credible alternative, (other than one of the gods done did it).

You also are not a Nobel laureate, teaching for Harvard and working at Johns Hopkins. Of course you won't "bother" with him. You are incapable of doing so.

You still have not told us what the absolute boundary is, between life and non-life.
You told us you have better videos. Where are they ?

Quote:This can be rationalized in a sentient being as self –preservation. (It is an emergent property so science/reductionism will never be able to explain self –preservation.)

Complete bullshit. There are animals which will sacrifice themselves for their group, expending great energy, and never achieving lower entropy.
Self-preservation is an evolved property. There are many (non-sentient) organisms in which "reflexes" are observed to noxious stimuli, (fire, heat, cold, extreme pH etc etc).
So sorry.
Science HAS ALREADY explained "self preservation". You're and your idiot friends from Creation Ministries are just too dense to get it.http://www.joelvelasco.net/teaching/167w...%20dna.pdf

Strawmen and appeals to authority. I watched 1/3 the video and saw high level hand waving canned RNA world stuff. I'll try to finish it soon, but I'd be shocked if I learn anything.
I don't know what the absolute boundary is, and it is not relevant to this discussion.

My point that you have yet to directly address is that living things extract energy from the environment in order to lower entropy. That cannot be explained in simple chemical systems. All inanimate chemical systems cease when whatever is driving them is removed.
This link describes self preservation at the genome level in a cell. I am discussing it at the system level Why doesn't an amoeba just stop taking on energy and cease like any other chemical system would?
Science has never answered that and it is not addressed in the literature. Science cannot explain why the chemicals in a living systems behave differently than those in inanimate objects.